But during his brief meeting with Mother Teresa, whom he calls 'Mother' throughout the book, she persuades him to visit Kalighat, her Home for the Dying, and later, the MCs in Washington, D.C. At first, he’s disgusted, assaulted by the 'smell of sewage and burning garbage' of the decaying city. It’s in this sullen state that Towey first encounters Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity (MCs) on a trip to Calcutta on Hatfield’s behalf.

Towey describes the 'snide cynicism, nurtured by the phony social rituals and mercenary friendships of Capitol Hill' he cultivated following the loss. In a heartbreaking passage early on, his best friend commits suicide shortly after college, following a failed marriage and bout of despair. Likewise, Towey’s story is not without crosses. 'They would never see each other again,' Towey writes, describing what would become an excruciating cross for both to bear. One of the most moving moments early in the book is when Mother Teresa says goodbye to her mother, Drana, at the age of 19 to enter the Sisters of Loreto and begin missionary work in India. Meanwhile, Mother Teresa, who grew up Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, is a child coming of age amid complicated civil unrest, helping her mother provide for the family after her father is poisoned by political rivals. He’s on the political fast-track by day, and barhopping by night-yet unfulfilled.

staffer for Republican senator Mark Hatfield.

In the opening, Towey is a winsome twenty-something D.C. To Love and Be Loved: A Personal Portrait of Mother Teresa is a powerful 'white pill,' masterfully weaving together vignettes from Towey’s own life with the arc of the Albanian nun pursuing the will of God. A new book from Jim Towey tells the story of the unlikely kinship between the tiny missionary and glamorous monarch, as well as others he witnessed as legal counsel and devoted friend to the saint.

Goodbye my princess